Ignacio Narbondo—Kelso Drake: Criminal Partnership

Ignacio Narbondo and Kelso Drake form a clandestine criminal partnership whose exact purpose is never confirmed. Theophilus Godall discovers that Drake visits Narbondo and that the two meet discreetly; he suspects their dealings connect Narbondo’s experiments to Drake’s ambitions, but the evidence leaves the bargain unresolved. Their relationship is defined as much by secrecy and competing interests as by cooperation.

Evidence of a Secret Partnership

Godall reports that he has taken a room across from Narbondo’s cabinet and has seen Drake visit the doctor more than once. He also says he followed each man separately before tracing them to a meeting at a public house in the Borough. Drake, Godall observes, would not want to be seen abroad with Narbondo. The meeting place is secluded: its rooms back onto an alley, its entrance is difficult to locate, and the surrounding, disused inn forms a maze of gables, attic rooms, and passages. Godall considers it a suitable setting for concealed business, though he cannot establish what the men agreed.

The distinction between observation and inference matters. Godall has evidence of repeated contact and a private meeting, enough to conclude that Drake and Narbondo do business together. He does not yet know how their interests fit together. Their alliance is therefore presented as real but opaque: the concealment is clear, while the terms remain a matter of investigation.

Possible Terms of Their Dealings

Godall’s first explanation is that Narbondo may be able to provide Drake with an army of compliant workers, potentially useful against organized labor. This is a conjecture about the purpose of their bargain, not a confirmed plan. Godall has seen men at The Blood Pudding whom he identifies as dead, and he says he watched Narbondo revive what was almost certainly a corpse. Those observations give his labor theory a basis, but do not show that Drake has ordered or received such workers.

A second possibility arises when Godall hears about the creature in the box associated with Sebastian Owlesby’s wishes. He then considers whether Drake hopes to purchase what Owlesby sought and believes Narbondo can provide. This alternative shifts the suspected transaction from labor to an unusual object or being. Godall does not settle between the two explanations, and the account does not confirm that either was the actual subject of the meeting.

Narbondo’s Experiments and Their Limits

Narbondo’s work supplies the context for Godall’s suspicions. In his laboratory, he studies carp and removes a gland from one of the fish, preserving it in a vial. Later, during another attempted revival, he prepares a corpse and a sluggish carp together, working with evident concentration. The scenes establish that his experiments involve fish and the reanimation of the dead; they do not establish that Drake directs the research or understands its procedures.

Godall’s account links Narbondo’s experiments to the possibility of a supply of reanimated workers, but that connection remains his interpretation. The distinction keeps the partnership from becoming a simple, fully documented conspiracy: Narbondo’s experimental practice is shown, Drake’s repeated contact with him is reported, and the proposed commercial use lies between those facts as a suspicion.

Competing Claims on Knowledge and Technology

Drake’s connection to Narbondo also sits within a wider contest over scientific knowledge. The Royal Academy seeks information about Dr. Birdlip’s dirigible and believes William Keeble, rather than Birdlip, to be the source of its engine. Parsons presses Langdon St. Ives to persuade Keeble to cooperate, while St. Ives recognizes that the Academy wants the engine more than it cares about Birdlip’s larger pursuit. Godall’s warning that Drake must not obtain the engine places the secretive partnership alongside this institutional effort to control technology, though the evidence does not establish that Narbondo’s experiments and the dirigible engine are parts of one scheme.

The uncertainty is central to the relationship’s narrative function. Godall can identify the contacts, the secrecy, and the disturbing work taking place around Narbondo, yet he cannot name the final object of the bargain. The partnership thus connects Drake’s concealed dealings to Narbondo’s experiments while preserving an unresolved question: whether their cooperation is chiefly about power over labor, the thing sought by Owlesby, or another interest not yet disclosed.